


Opia

by celeste9



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Pre-Slash, Trick or Treat: Treat, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-09 18:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: The thing is, Jake is over Nate.At least, Jake is sure he is, until Nate is standing in front of him and Amara in that tight gray t-shirt, looking fine as hell.





	Opia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_milky_way](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_milky_way/gifts).



The thing is, Jake is over Nate.

Not that there was ever really anything to get over. Because there wasn’t. The stick was so far up Nate’s ass there was no removing it, and Jake had no interest in trying. Honestly.

They might have been partners once but that was it. It wasn’t like they had ever passed bottles of booze between them until they were so wasted they couldn’t stand straight and everything suddenly became hilarious, or shared ice cream sundaes in the kitchen at midnight until they were sick, or raced each other around the perimeter, purposely crossing into the other’s path to trip him up.

Or, okay. Maybe they had done all that.

And maybe after runs, hot and sweaty, they had showered in neighboring stalls, joking over the sound of the water, passing soap and shampoo across the partition. And maybe they had both come out at the same time, dripping, toweling off, shoving each other, dressing, and maybe…

But Jake is over Nate and his pecs and his abs and his stupid pretty face.

At least, Jake is sure he is, until Nate is standing in front of him and Amara in that tight gray t-shirt, looking fine as hell.

But that doesn’t matter, because Jake is over whatever thing they never really had and the stick is maybe even farther up Nate’s tight ass than it used to be.

Ranger Lambert. Fuck him.

-

Jake is still over Nate when they’re forced to Drift again, and he’s over Nate when everything falls apart, and, yeah, he’s still over Nate when they go after the Kaiju.  

When he pulls up a chair next to Nate’s infirmary bed it’s only because he’s not an asshole, right? They were friends, and they’re still co-pilots, and Nate almost died fighting with them. 

(Jake  _ felt  _ it. If he never has to - God. He never wants to feel that again.)

He’s glad Nate is okay. There’s this sappy sense of relief that swells up in him when he thinks about it, so he tries not to. He supposes maybe that the whole co-pilot Drift connection thing doesn’t just go away, even when you don’t see each other in years, even when you piss away - 

“You look like shit,” he tells Nate, and Nate gives him the finger. “Lucky I’m pretty enough for both of us.”

Nate rolls his eyes. “If this is your idea of a sympathy visit, it could use some work.”

“Come on, man, like my mere presence doesn’t brighten your day? You feel better already just looking at me, admit it.”

“I do feel something, now that you mention it. What’s this? Oh, right. Annoyance. I’d forgotten what that feels like without you hanging around me all the time.”

“Nate,” Jake says, and exaggerates a pout. “I’m wounded.” 

Nate shifts and then winces. “That makes two of us.”

“Yeah, but you’re on the good stuff, aren’t you?” When Nate inclines his head slightly, a smile tugging at his lips, Jake grins. “That’s what I thought.”

“Jules was here earlier,” Nate says, obviously smug, and a little bit something else. Like he’s aiming for a reaction, sort of, but… nervous about it.

Weird.

“What, you trying to make me jealous?”

Nate shrugs. He’s looking more at the wall behind Jake than actually at him, kind of looking at him askance rather than straight on. “Are you?”

Jake doesn’t know what Nate wants here. He doesn’t even know what  _ he  _ wants.

“Let’s be real here, mate,” Jake says, and leans forward a little. “She’s never gonna go for either of us.”

“Yeah,” Nate sighs in agreement. He doesn’t seem disappointed, or even resigned, really. Jake can’t tell what Nate feels. Not that he ever really could.

Jake rests his elbows on his thighs and watches Nate. He wonders exactly what Nate wanted him to be jealous of.

But that’s stupid, yeah? Because Jake is over Nate, and there was never anything much to get over in the first place. So none of it matters. Right.

Nate’s eyes flicker over him, down his chest and then up to his face, and then their eyes lock. It’s weird; Jake had forgotten just how blue Nate’s eyes are. He isn’t sure he’s really looked in… Well, that doesn’t matter.

Now there’s no power play pissing contest going on, there’s no fighting to save the world, there’s just Jake and Nate and whatever is still between them, beyond stewing hurt and anger over how it all ended when Jake left. Got kicked out. Semantics. And, okay, maybe there is a part of Jake that missed Nate, just a little, and a part of him that regretted the way they never did anything about that… that nebulous nothing he’s over.

Or not over.

Okay, he’s not over it. Who the hell was he kidding?

Nate is still gazing at him and it’s… Jake wishes he could know what Nate’s thinking, if he’s just thinking he’d like to kick Jake’s ass or if he’s wishing they’d done something all those times they  _ almost.  _

Almost, almost, almost. Jake kind of hates that word.

He wonders if Nate can tell what he’s thinking.

“Don’t think Jules would’ve been up to the task of removing that stick up your ass anyway,” Jake finds himself saying, and Nate’s eyes widen.

“The stick?” he says.

“Yeah, I mean,” Jake says, and he’s all ready to backpedal but then he’s saying, “if someone’s gonna have a go I figure it ought to be me.”

Fuck. Fucking hell.

Jake can’t quite look at Nate anymore, his eyes drifting down to his neck, then lower, and damn, his pecs still look great, even beneath the stupid paper gown thing he’s got on. It isn’t fair. How can Jake be expected to not have a thing for Nate when he’s this stupidly hot, when they’d look fucking great together, come on. 

And then Nate is snickering. “I missed you, too, Jake,” he says. “You fucking stupid asshole.”

So Jake meets Nate’s eyes again, and pushes forward in the chair, brushes his knuckles against Nate’s thigh, imagines he feels him shiver. “Yeah,” he says, and grins.

So maybe he’s not over Nate, but that’s okay, because Nate isn’t over him either.

He likes where this is headed.


End file.
